Predators & Parasitoids

2. Bee Castes

Life history and castes in honey bees

(Ex: Indian Bee- Apis cerana indica)

Honey bees are social insects that live in colonies. The hive population consists of a single queen, a few hundred drones and thousands of worker bees.

Life history

Eggs are cigar shaped, laid singly in the cell by the queen. Grubs are apodous,cream colored, curled in the cell and nourished by the workers. Pupae are exarate. Aduls are polymorphic.

      Duration of the life cycle of differnt castes of honey bees

Caste	Duration (Days)			Adult longivity
	Egg	Larva	Pupa
Queen	3	5	7-8	2-3 years
Worker	3	4	11-12	50 days
Drone	3	7	14	57 days

Queen and workers are differentiated by its larval diet.

Larval diet of different castes

Caste	Larval period (Days)	Larval diet
		Royal jelly	Bee bread
Queen	5	5 days	-
Worker	4	First day of emergence	2nd to 4th day
Drone	7	First three days from emergence	4th to 7th day

Queen

• Queen is the mother of the colony
• The only fertile female developed from fertilized eggs in a cone shaped cells at the bottom of the comb.
• She is larger than other castes.
• Wing is shorter than worker because of her proportionately larger abdomen.
• Abdomen is shiny black and triangular in shape(more elongated than the worker’s) and posses sward like ovipositor.

Worker

• Worker is a busy, industious, selfless and devoted member of the colony.
• They are thousands in a colony (10,000-15,000).
• She is a sterile female developed from fertilized egg.
• Worker cells are hexagonal in shape and are covered by flat caps during pupation.
• Abdomen is triangular,striped and has barbed sting.
• She has well developed tongue for lapping nector.
• Legs are modified as antenna cleaner (fore leg) to clean the antenna, pollen basket (Hind leg) to carry pollen Tibial spine present in the middle leg used to land on a flower/ scoop out the wax flakes.
• Wax glands present in the 4^th ,5^th ,6^th  & 7^th sternite.

Drone

• Drone is a fertile male developed from unfertized egg. Larger than worker.
• Drone cells are hexagonal in shape, larger than worker cell and are covered by convex cap with hole in the centre during pupation.